The invention is in the field of aligning sheets of printed materials, of the type that aligns sheets of printed materials for a desired output, for example, from a finishing device.
Devices for aligning flexible sheets of printed materials bearing images and text of the type mentioned above are known.
EP 0 494 108-A2 mentions an alignment unit as a stationary component of a copier for turning sheets of printed materials for the purpose of double-sided (duplex) copying, one-sided color highlight copying and alignment of sheets of printed materials according to the requirements of a separate downstream finishing device (finisher). The aligning unit or turning unit has a pocket mounted at a right angle to the upper and lower guideways of the copier, with a first end running into the upper guideway of the copier and a second end running into the lower guideway of the copier. In the area of the first end of the pocket and of the upper guideway, several side-by-side mounted, driven transport rollers and a controllable two-way distributing guide are mounted, by means of which sheets of printed materials bearing a toner image coming from the copier are transported into the pocket and, out of it, either back to the copier or to the external finishing device. In this process, the pocket can be swiveled or moved laterally so that the sheets of printed materials located in the pocket are guided, by means of through-feed transport rollers mounted in the pocket guideway, between the respective transport rollers over the top end of the pocket.
While the upper transport rollers have a specified uniform turning direction, the direction of rotation of the through-feed transport rollers located in the pocket is reversible. Besides that, sheets of printed materials can be conveyed by means of the through-feed transport rollers from the lower guideway of the copier to the upper sheet guideway and vice versa. In addition, sheets of printed materials can be transported directly to the external finishing device by means of the distributing guide and the transport rollers of the upper guideway.
The invention is directed to improved alignment apparatus and processes for inverting printed sheets.